The Vampire Chronicles Collection

by Anne Rice

  “I want it. I understand,” I said. “And yet when they offered it to me in Paris, to remain with the Theater, I couldn’t do it.”

  “That was not the right place for you. Besides, the Theater of the Vampires is a coven. It isn’t the world any more than this island refuge of mine is the world. And too many horrors happened to you there.

  “But in this New World wilderness to which you’re headed, this barbaric little city called New Orleans, you may enter into the world as never before. You may take up residence there as a mortal, just as you tried to do so many times in your wanderings with Gabrielle. There will be no old covens to bother you, no rogues to try to strike you down out of fear. And when you make others—and you will, out of loneliness, make others—make and keep them as human as you can. Keep them close to you as members of a family, not as members of a coven, and understand the age you live in, the decades you pass through. Understand the style of garment that adorns your body, the styles of dwellings in which you spend your leisure hours, the place in which you hunt. Understand what it means to feel the passage of time!”

  “Yes, and feel all the pain of seeing things die …” All the things Armand advised against.

  “Of course. You are made to triumph over time, not to run from it. And you will suffer that you harbor the secret of your monstrosity and that you must kill. And maybe you will try to feast only on the evildoer to assuage your conscience, and you may succeed, or you may fail. But you can come very close to life, if you will only lock the secret within you. You are fashioned to be close to it, as you yourself once told the members of the old Paris coven. You are the imitation of a man.”

  “I want it, I do want it—”

  “Then do as I advise. And understand this also. In a real way, eternity is merely the living of one human lifetime after another. Of course, there may be long periods of retreat; times of slumber or of merely watching. But again and again we plunge into the stream, and we swim as long as we can, until time or tragedy brings us down as they will do mortals.”

  “Will you do it again? Leave this retreat and plunge into the stream?”

  “Yes, definitely. When the right moment presents itself. When the world is so interesting again that I can’t resist it. Then I’ll walk city streets. I’ll take a name. I’ll do things.”

  “Then come now, with me!” Ah, painful echo of Armand. And of the vain plea from Gabrielle ten years after.

  “It’s a more tempting invitation than you know,” he answered, “but I’d do you a great disservice if I came with you. I’d stand between you and the world. I couldn’t help it.”

  I shook my head and looked away, full of bitterness.

  “Do you want to continue?” he asked. “Or do you want Gabrielle’s predictions to come true?”

  “I want to continue,” I said.

  “Then you must go,” he said. “A century from now, maybe less, we’ll meet again. I won’t be on this island. I will have taken Those Who Must Be Kept to another place. But wherever I am and wherever you are, I’ll find you. And then I’ll be the one who will not want you to leave me. I’ll be the one who begs you to remain. I’ll fall in love with your company, your conversation, the mere sight of you, your stamina and your recklessness, and your lack of belief in anything—all the things about you I already love rather too strongly.”

  I could scarcely listen to this without breaking down. I wanted to beg him to let me remain.

  “Is it absolutely impossible now?” I asked. “Marius, can’t you spare me this lifetime?”

  “Quite impossible,” he said. “I can tell you stories forever, but they are no substitute for life. Believe me, I’ve tried to spare others. I’ve never succeeded. I can’t teach what one lifetime can teach. I never should have taken Armand in his youth, and his centuries of folly and suffering are a penance to me even now. You did him a mercy driving him into the Paris of this century, but I fear for him it is too late. Believe me, Lestat, when I say this has to happen. You must have that lifetime, for those who are robbed of it spin in dissatisfaction until they finally live it somewhere or they are destroyed.”

  “And what about Gabrielle?”

  “Gabrielle had her life; she had her death almost. She has the strength to reenter the world when she chooses, or to live on its fringes indefinitely.” “And do you think she will ever reenter?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Gabrielle defies my understanding. Not my experience—she’s too like Pandora. But I never understood Pandora. The truth is most women are weak, be they mortal or immortal. But when they are strong, they are absolutely unpredictable.”

  I shook my head. I closed my eyes for a moment. I didn’t want to think of Gabrielle. Gabrielle was gone, no matter what we said here.

  And I still could not accept that I had to go. This seemed an Eden to me. But I didn’t argue anymore. I knew he was resolute, and I also knew that he wouldn’t force me. He’d let me start worrying about my mortal father, and he’d let me come to him and say I had to go. I had a few nights left.

  “Yes,” he answered softly. “And there are other things I can tell you.”

  I opened my eyes again. He was looking at me patiently, affectionately. I felt the ache of love as strongly as I’d ever felt it for Gabrielle. I felt the inevitable tears and did my best to suppress them.

  “You’ve learned a great deal from Armand,” he said, his voice steady as if to help me with this little silent struggle. “And you learned much more on your own. But there are still some things I might teach you.”

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  “Well, for one thing,” he said, “your powers are extraordinary, but you can’t expect those you make in the next fifty years to equal you or Gabrielle. Your second child didn’t have half Gabrielle’s strength and later children will have even less. The blood I gave you will make some difference. If you drink … if you drink from Akasha and Enkil, which you may choose not to do … that will make some difference too. But no matter, only so many children can be made by one in a century. And new offspring will be weak. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. The rule of the old covens had wisdom in it that strength should come with time. And then again, there is the old truth: you might make titans or imbeciles, no one knows why or how.

  “Whatever will happen will happen, but choose your companions with care. Choose them because you like to look at them and you like the sound of their voices, and they have profound secrets in them that you wish to know. In other words, choose them because you love them. Otherwise you will not be able to bear their company for very long.”

  “I understand,” I said. “Make them in love.”

  “Exactly, make them in love. And make certain they have had some lifetime before you make them; and never never make one as young as Armand. That is the worst crime I have ever committed against my own kind, the taking of the young boy child Armand.”

  “But you didn’t know the Children of Darkness would come when they did, and separate him from you.”

  “No. But still, I should have waited. It was loneliness that drove me to it. And Armand’s helplessness, that his mortal life was so completely in my hands. Remember, beware of that power, and the power you have over those who are dying. Loneliness in us, and that sense of power, can be as strong as the thirst for blood. If there were not an Enkil there might be no Akasha, and if there were not an Akasha, then there would be no Enkil.”

  “Yes. And from everything you said, it seems Enkil covets Akasha. That Akasha is the one who now and then …”

  “Yes, that’s true.” His face became very somber suddenly, and his eyes had a confidential look in them as if we were whispering to each other and fearful another might hear. He waited for a moment as if thinking what to say. “Who knows what Akasha might do if there were no Enkil to hold her?” he whispered. “And why do I pretend that he can’t hear this even when I think it? Why do I whisper? He can destroy me anytime that he likes. Maybe Akasha is the only t
hing keeping him from it. But then what would become of them if he did away with me?”

  “Why did they let themselves be burnt by the sun?” I asked.

  “How can we know? Perhaps they knew it wouldn’t hurt them. It would only hurt and punish those who had done it to them. Perhaps in the state they live in they are slow to realize what is going on outside them. And they did not have time to gather their forces, to wake from their dreams and save themselves. Maybe their movements after it happened—the movements of Akasha I witnessed—were only possible because they had been awakened by the sun. And now they sleep again with their eyes open. And they dream again. And they do not even drink.”

  “What did you mean … if I choose to drink their blood?” I asked. “How could I not choose?”

  “That is something we have to think on, both of us,” he said. “And there is always the possibility that they won’t allow you to drink.”

  I shuddered thinking of one of those arms striking out at me, knocking me twenty feet across the chapel, or perhaps right through the stone floor itself.

  “She told you her name, Lestat,” he said. “I think she will let you drink. But if you take her blood, then you will be even more resilient than you are now. A few droplets will strengthen you, but if she gives you more than that, a full measure, hardly any force on earth can destroy you after that. You have to be certain you want it.”

  “Why wouldn’t I want it?” I said.

  “Do you want to be burnt to a cinder and live on in agony? Do you want to be slashed with knives a thousand times over, or shot through and through with guns, and yet live on, a shredded husk that cannot fend for itself? Believe me, Lestat, that can be a terrible thing. You could suffer the sun even, and live through it, burnt beyond recognition, wishing as the old gods did in Egypt that they had died.”

  “But won’t I heal faster?”

  “Not necessarily. Not without another infusion of her blood in the wounded state. Time with its constant measure of human victims or the blood of old ones—these are the restoratives. But you may wish you had died. Think on this. Take your time.”

  “What would you do if you were I?”

  “I would drink from Those Who Must Be Kept, of course. I would drink to be stronger, more nearly immortal. I would beseech Akasha on my knees to allow it, and then I would go into her arms. But it’s easy to say these things. She has never struck out at me. She has never forbidden me, and I know that I want to live forever. I would endure the fire again. I would endure the sun. And all manner of suffering in order to go on. You may not be so sure that eternity is what you want.”

  “I want it,” I said. “I could pretend to think about it, pretend to be clever and wise as I weigh it. But what the hell? I wouldn’t fool you, would I? You knew what I would say.”

  He smiled.

  “Then before you leave we will go into the chapel and we will ask her, humbly, and we will see what she says.”

  “And for now, more answers?” I asked.

  He gestured for me to ask.

  “I’ve seen ghosts,” I said. “Seen the pesty demons you described. I’ve seen them possess mortals and dwellings.”

  “I know no more than you do. Most ghosts seem to be mere apparitions without knowledge that they are being watched. I have never spoken to a ghost nor been addressed by one. As for the pesty demons, what can I add to Enkil’s ancient explanation, that they rage because they do not have bodies. But there are other immortals that are more interesting.”

  “What are they?”

  “There are at least two in Europe who do not and have never drunk blood. They can walk in the daylight as well as in the dark, and they have bodies and they are very strong. They look exactly like men. There was one in ancient Egypt, known as Ramses the Damned to the Egyptian court, though he was hardly damned as far as I can tell. His name was taken off all the royal monuments after he vanished. You know the Egyptians used to do that, obliterate the name as they sought to kill the being. And I don’t know what happened to him. The old scrolls didn’t tell.”

  “Armand spoke of him,” I said. “Armand told of legends, that Ramses was an ancient vampire.”

  “He is not. But I didn’t believe what I read of him till I’d seen the others with my own eyes. And again, I have not communicated with them. I have only seen them, and they were terrified of me and fled. I fear them because they walk in the sun. And they are powerful and bloodless and who knows what they might do? But you may live centuries and never see them.”

  “But how old are they? How long has it been?”

  “They are very old, probably as old as I am. I can’t tell. They live as wealthy, powerful men. And possibly there are more of them, they may have some way of propagating themselves, I’m not sure. Pandora said once that there was a woman too. But then Pandora and I couldn’t agree upon anything about them. Pandora said they had been what we were, and they were ancient, and had ceased to drink as the Mother and the Father have ceased to drink. I don’t think they were ever what we are. They are something else without blood. They don’t reflect light as we do. They absorb it. They are just a shade darker than mortals. And they are dense, and strong. You may never see them, but I tell you to warn you. You must never let them know where you lie. They can be more dangerous than humans.”

  “But are humans really dangerous? I’ve found them so easy to deceive.”

  “Of course they’re dangerous. Humans could wipe us out if they ever really understood about us. They could hunt us by day. Don’t ever underestimate that single advantage. Again, the rules of the old covens have their wisdom. Never, never tell mortals about us. Never tell a mortal where you lie or where any vampire lies. It is absolute folly to think you can control mortals.”

  I nodded, though it was very hard for me to fear mortals. I never had.

  “Even the vampire theater in Paris,” he cautioned, “does not flaunt the simplest truths about us. It plays with folklore and illusions. Its audience is completely fooled.”

  I realized this was true. And that even in her letters to me Eleni always disguised her meanings and never used our full names.

  And something about this secrecy oppressed me as it always had.

  But I was racking my brain, trying to discover if I’d ever seen the bloodless things … The truth was, I might have mistaken them for rogue vampires.

  “There is one other thing I should tell you about supernatural beings,” Marius said.

  “What is it?”

  “I am not certain of this, but I’ll tell you what I think. I suspect that when we are burnt—when we are destroyed utterly—that we can come back again in another form. I don’t speak of man now, of human reincarnation. I know nothing of the destiny of human souls. But we do live forever and I think we come back.”

  “What makes you say this?” I couldn’t help but think of Nicolas.

  “The same thing that makes mortals talk of reincarnation. There are those who claim to remember other lives. They come to us as mortals, claiming to know all about us, to have been one of us, and asking to be given the Dark Gift again. Pandora was one of these. She knew many things, and there was no explanation for her knowledge, except perhaps that she imagined it, or drew it, without realizing it, out of my mind. That’s a real possibility, that they are merely mortals with hearing that allows them to receive our undirected thoughts.

  “Whatever the case, there are not many of them. If they were vampires, then surely they are only a few of those who have been destroyed. So the others perhaps do not have the strength to come back. Or they do not choose to do so. Who can know? Pandora was convinced she had died when the Mother and the Father had been put in the sun.”

  “Dear God, they are born again as mortals and they want to be vampires again?”

  Marius smiled.

  “You’re young, Lestat, and how you contradict yourself. What do you really think it would be like to be mortal again? Think on this when you set eyes on your mortal father
.”

  Silently I conceded the point. But what I had made of mortality in my imagination I didn’t really want to lose. I wanted to go on grieving for my lost mortality. And I knew that my love of mortals was all bound up with my not being afraid of them.

  Marius looked away, distracted once more. The same perfect attitude of listening. And then his face became attentive to me again.

  “Lestat, we should have no more than two or three nights,” he said sadly.

  “Marius!” I whispered. I bit down on the words that wanted to spill out.

  My only consolation was the expression on his face, and it seemed now he had never looked even faintly inhuman.

  “You don’t know how I want you to stay here,” he said. “But life is out there, not here. When we meet again I’ll tell you more things, but you have all you need for now. You have to go to Louisiana and see your father to the finish of his life and learn from that what you can. I’ve seen legions of mortals grow old and die. You’ve seen none. But believe me, my young friend, I want you desperately to remain with me. You don’t know how much. I promise you that I will find you when the time comes.”

  “But why can’t I return to you? Why must you leave here?”

  “It’s time,” he said. “I’ve ruled too long over these people as it is. I arouse suspicions, and besides, Europeans are coming into these waters. Before I came here I was hidden in the buried city of Pompeii below Vesuvius, and mortals, meddling and digging up those ruins, drove me out. Now it’s happening again. I must seek some other refuge, something more remote, and more likely to remain so. And frankly I would never have brought you here if I planned to remain.”

  “Why not?”

  “You know why not. I can’t have you or anyone else know the location of Those Who Must Be Kept. And that brings us now to something very important: the promises I must have from you.”

  “Anything,” I said. “But what could you possibly want that I could give?”